Minimally invasive medical techniques are intended to reduce the amount of tissue that is damaged during medical procedures, thereby reducing patient recovery time, discomfort, and deleterious side effects. Such minimally invasive techniques may be performed through natural orifices in a patient anatomy or through one or more surgical incisions. Through these natural orifices or incisions clinicians may insert minimally invasive medical instruments (including surgical, diagnostic, therapeutic, or biopsy instruments) to reach a target tissue location. To assist with reaching the target tissue location, the location and movement of the medical instruments may be correlated with pre-operative or intra-operative images of the patient anatomy. These image-guided instruments may be tracked using, for example, electromagnetic (EM), mechanical, optical, or ultrasonic tracking systems. The image-guided instruments may navigate natural or surgically created passageways in anatomical systems such as the lungs, the colon, the intestines, the kidneys, the heart, the circulatory system, or the like. When image-guided medical instruments are used to remove tissue samples, the tissue samples are typically sent for analysis by a pathologist. The pathologist verbally communicates the results to the clinician. Systems and methods are needed to allow the clinician to receive additional information about the tissue samples that can be used to conduct further investigation, guide the acquisition of additional tissue samples, and/or improve procedure efficiency.